therein in reverence and in awe.

Let me simply enumerate some of the manifest consequences of this love.

1. From the very first love expresses itself as a reaching after
intimacy. For many days two lovers are busy telling each other all
about themselves, about their past experiences, their hopes and
aspirations, their doubts and fears, their relations to other people,
and their various circumstances. They want to know and be known. They
want to share everything. Towards mere friends we do well to practice
some reserve. By talking about ourselves we may be apt to bore them.
But lovers want to know everything, and are wise if they have no
reserves.

2. Then, secondly, love obviously increases the vitality and so adds to
the physical beauty of both men and women. Indeed it increases vigor of
all kinds, producing new powers of sheer physical and nervous
endurance. What will a man who is truly in love not do for love's sake,
and that without thinking of fatigue! What untold things women have
accomplished under the spur of the same inspiration.

3. Thirdly, it awakens the latent idealism of both, It is not by
accident that men in love are found trying to write poetry, though it
may be a bad accident if other people have to try to read it. Of course
we laugh at this naïve habit, because poetry seems a thing incongruous
with the ordinary prosaic man, with his baggy trousers and clumsy ways.
But for my part I rather incline to thank God that such an impulse
should ever disturb the average man. What could be better than that at
one stage of his life at least he should try to reach the stars. And if
from the works of real poets we were to banish all the love-inspired